


Undercover I Do

by Fanforlife84



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood and Injury, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hospitalization, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29269833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanforlife84/pseuds/Fanforlife84
Summary: While on an undercover assignment posing as a married couple, you are attacked and nearly assaulted.  Upon waking, all you remember about Javier Peña is what you remembering seeing from two photographs of the two of you posing as the happily married couple.  As you struggle to regain your memories, Javi struggles with his own feelings for you.
Relationships: Javier Peña/Reader
Comments: 20
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Narcos story and first story that I've posted in forever. Feedback and comments greatly appreciated. Plan to raise the rating in later chapters. Also, though I'm sure it's obvious, none of this is based on any kind of medical fact other than info from a few internet searches!) 
> 
> =-0) 
> 
> Be well!

***

You were in trouble.

The thought hit you softly, then emanated throughout every fiber of you as the burly, sweaty sicarios continued to lurk about the room, taking turns saying disgusting things to you and knocking your partner around with their fists and guns. Javier Peña looked like he was holding up ok under their relentless onslaught, but you knew that wouldn’t last long. And you knew it was only a matter of time before they directed their attention away from him and onto you.

Unlike your partner, who was handcuffed to a radiator on the far side of the lavishly decorated master bedroom, you were zip tied to the metal headboard of the large bed, a gag stuffed into your mouth and your legs strapped together with rope at the ankles and knees. As the men were distracted with pummeling your partner, you tried desperately to slip your hands from the ties binding them together, wrenching your body to try to gain leverage to make something happen, to create even a millimeter of space to slip your hands through. As the men continued to scream at Javier in Spanish, the bedroom banged door opened and Rafel Ortiz entered the room calmly, holding a rifle and proudly surveying the brutality on one side of the room, then directing his gaze towards you on the bed. The ringleader of this disgusting band of drug dealers gave you a lurid smirk, then slid his way across the room to you, approaching carefully. You saw out of the corner of your eye the men attacking Peña stop their pummeling, one of them grabbing him by the hair and ripping his face up, pointing it towards you and their leader, making sure he had a good view.

_ Nononononononono _ ...You thought as you continued to pull at your wrists, hollering at Ortiz behind the gag to “get the fuck away”, “don’t even think about it”, you would “fucking kill him if he even tried to come near” you. He was undeterred as he chuckled darkly and put one knee up on the bed and then the other, sliding a sweaty palm onto your ankle and then up your calf and inner thigh, gripping tightly when you thrashed and tried to get away from his touch. He placed his rifle next to you on the bed.

_ Now now hermosa.  _ He snarled in Spanish _. That’s no way to behave. Just lie still. I’m going to put my big cock in all of your dirty little holes, and then let my men do the same. Then I promise you, I will let you see to your boyfriend over there before I kill you both. _ You spat out every expletive you knew in every language you knew as he moved up the bed towards you, evading your knees when you swung them up to try to catch him in the groin. He straddled your legs and pulled a knife from his belt. You hesitated for a split second, then redoubled your efforts, squirming and screaming and thrashing, but he tightened his lock on your legs between his own and cut the rope at your knees, flipping you over violently. You cried out in pain for the first time at the excruciating stretch the flip caused in your wrists and hands, the searing jolts shooting down into your shoulders and chest. But the pain was immediately forgotten as Ortiz shoved your dress up above your hips and started to pry your hips open. You clenched your legs together with every single fiber you had and he removed his hands. 

You vaguely heard another pleading voice shouting from somewhere far away and it took you a moment to realize that it was Javier, screaming at Ortiz to get off of you, to not touch you, that he would fucking kill him. You heard Ortiz laugh again, raise his voice to toss his taunt across the room.  _ That’s right fellas. Make sure he watches the whole thing. Fucking DEA!  _ You heard a belt buckle being unhitched behind you and a zipper coming down and your sudden angry cries turned into desperate screams and pleading that couldn’t be understood behind the gag in your mouth. You felt his disgusting hands prying at your knees again and though you tried desperately to keep them locked together, he had more leverage and more strength than you. You screamed as he got your legs separated and touched your body between your legs.

Your screams were drowned out the sound of dulled, panicked shouting and crashing and multiple heavy popping sounds. It took you a moment to realize that there were new voices doing the shouting from not that far away and that Ortiz’s hand was no longer on you. You took the opportunity to swing your released legs around towards him and tried to buck him off of you. You caught a glimpse of him out of the corner or your eye just before he brought the butt of his rifle down across your face, sending you sprawling as far as your restraints would allow, falling half on, half off the bed. 

You felt wet trickling down your face from somewhere and you tried to shake the dots from your vision, tried to hang on as a heavy weight settled over you, pushing you down into a swirling nothingness. Your gaze drifted to find something to focus on. Your blurry vision settled on two framed photographs on the bedside table. 

One showed a happy couple snuggled together. The woman’s head was tucked into a handsome man’s shoulder, her nose gently nuzzling up into his neck, his chin lowered, kissing the knuckles of her left hand that was raised to his lips, holding it there with his own strong hand. It was an intimate moment captured within the edges of the picture frame and it illustrated the ring that shone from the woman’s fourth finger. It was you and Javier. 

The photo next to it was also one of you and Javier. He wore a crisp white dress shirt and tuxedo pants. His hands were on your waist and his nose hovered millimeters from your own, his eyes nearly closed in contentment, either just about to kiss you or having just done so. You had both hands framing his face, again the ring on your hand visible. The lacy white wedding dress and beautifully styled hair you sported in the photo complimented his own formal attire. You both looked at each other adoringly, as though you were whispering secrets to one another, speaking promises and words of love meant for just the two of you. 

You felt yourself slipping into blackness as you gazed at the photographs, wanting to respond to Javier’s distant voice as you heard it calling to you from far away. But the inky tug of unconsciousness pulled you down and all you knew was black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of Chapter 1 from Javi's point of view, plus the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Hopefully Google translate didn't botch the translation too badly!)

***

Javier Peña hated hospitals.

He hated the way they smelled. He hated the bald lighting that made everyone look gaunt and ghostly. He hated the uncomfortable plastic chairs you had to wait in if you could be still enough to sit. He hated the shitty coffee and the stale smell of antiseptic covering the other, darker smells: blood, urine and God knows what else. He hated that he couldn’t smoke in them. 

But mostly he hated the fact that, when he was in a hospital, it was usually because someone he cared about was there, too.

He was pacing manically up and down the hallway; the nurses at the nearby station had been eyeing him anxiously for the last 15 minutes but he didn’t care. He knew right now his face was a pretty good reflection of how he felt inside: beaten, bruised, in pain. 

The wild panic he had felt spark along his spine the moment he had heard her muffled screaming, when it had changed in tone from angry rage and defiance to pure fear and terror had completely drowned out whatever pain he’d had from the pummeling he had been getting from Ortiz’s cronies. He knew he had started screaming across the room as soon as he realized Ortiz’s intent, but he couldn’t remember the words he had shouted. In that instant he had never felt such debilitating futility, such desperation; he had never felt so impotent in his life. He had never been so grateful to see Colombian police in all of his years in the country as when they had stormed the room and killed every last asshole in it...his only regret was that he hadn’t had the chance to shoot Ortiz himself. Any other time he might have been embarrassed by the high pitch that his voice reached as he hollered at them to get him out of the handcuffs that held him fast to the radiator. The doctor had told him not an hour earlier that he would probably have some scarring around his wrists from how deeply they had cut into his skin. He knew the bulk of that struggle had happened the moment he saw Ortiz climb onto that bed next to her.

He had managed to tamper down the bile and sick that had been roiling in his gut while he’d stared at her through his bloodied gaze as the men worked to get him free. He hadn’t felt real fear in a long time; his eyes hadn’t left her sprawled body during the incessant minutes that it took for someone to find the key to unlock him. The moment he was freed he had flown across the room, practically bowling over the young officer carefully checking his partner’s vital signs. He had pulled her gently into his lap, leaned against the bed and held her like a baby in his arms, cradling her head gently, anxiously watching the blood pour from her nasty head wound. Thinking back now, it hadn’t felt real; it seemed like he had been suspended above the room, hovering in a corner, watching himself hold her, whispering into her bloodied hair, peppering her forehead with soft kisses, begging her to “wake up, cariño; open your eyes, honey; wake up, baby; come on, cariño, don’t do this.” 

A medical team had arrived not long after. He had refused to leave her and climbed without invitation into the back of the ambulance with her, never releasing his grip on her hand. He had felt his heart leave his chest as her eyes had flickered open for a few brief moments during the drive to the hospital. Her gaze was glassy and distant, but for a moment he saw recognition flash across them, and he knew she had seen him. He’d forced a smile and put his face down close to hers, squeezing her hand and whispering to her: “I’m here. It’s ok. You’re gonna be ok. I’m right here with you, ok?” Her bloodied brow had furrowed slightly and then her eyes had slipped closed once again.

He hadn’t left the hallway outside the exam room they had taken her into until she had been brought out. Only then had he conceded to being looked at himself. But the doctor tending to his injuries had taken too long; he had at least one or two marks on his face that should probably have had a few more stitches, but he refused to be so far away from her for any longer. Just as he had returned their boss, Dixon, had arrived. The grey-haired older woman, though small in stature, was imposing nonetheless and intimidating to veteran DEA agents and pretentious medical doctors alike. The doctor that had left the hospital after tending to his partner had been unceremoniously invited to return in order to speak with the head DEA field officer in charge at the American Embassy. She had ordered Peña to stay outside as she spoke with the doctor, which he had been doing for the past 20 minutes. He felt like he was about to climb up the walls or start ripping his hair out of his head if that door didn’t open soon…

As though hearing him, the door swept open and Dixon waved him into the room. He gulped.

He really fucking hated hospitals.

The room was dim, lit only by a small lamp next to the bed. He was relieved when he saw her; he had been dreading seeing her filled with tubes and wires; dreading having to block out the drone and beep of machines. Other than a small IV in her arm and a clean, white bandage wrapped around her head above a badly bruised face, she didn’t seem in quite as critical a condition as he had feared...but he knew she had been hit so terribly hard with that gun. And he knew that head injuries could be nasty and dangerous. His suspicions were confirmed as the doctor reiterated what he had just briefed Dixon about: your partner had sustained swelling in the brain although luckily the hit had not caused any skull fractures. Though she was now out of danger and the swelling had mostly subsided, the severity of the initial injury meant that there was a chance there could be cognitive and physical issues once she woke up. That would all remain to be seen, though, until she regained consciousness. The doctor felt confident that she would make a full recovery physically; she was strong and in good health, though they would keep her sleeping tonight in order to aid in getting the last of the slight swelling in her brain to recede. They would just have to wait until she woke up tomorrow to assess the situation further. 

Peña moved to stand next to her bed, gazing down at his partner through the muted, feeble light. Half of her face in shadow made her look stark and haggard, though the expression on her face was set peacefully. He reached out a hand and gently stroked her unbruised cheek with the back of his hand, studying her face for any flicker of waking. He felt his breath come more easily and the knots in his shoulders and inside his throat release at the assurance of her warm skin against his, the soft sweep of her sleeping breath as it danced across his red, angry wrist.

“Agent Peña?” 

It took him a moment to recognize his name. He prised his gaze away from his sleeping partner and looked up at his boss. Dixon’s gaze was stern; she shot him a look that was half annoyance, half understanding. “Go home, Peña.” He straightened his back for an argument and opened his mouth to protest, but the  quinquagenarian held up a hand. 

“I know you want to stay, Agent Peña, but I can’t afford to have two agents out of commission. I need you to go home and rest so you’re ready to get back to things tomorrow. I’ll stay with her.” She paused, glancing at the younger woman asleep in the bed. Her gaze flicked back to the other agent, her face softened and for a brief moment, a flicker of understanding flashed across her face. “I promise you’ll be my first call if anything changes.” Peña looked at his boss, begging her for a moment with his eyes not to send him away. But the softness that was there only a moment before was wiped away and the stern face returned. “That’s an order, Peña,” she said quietly. 

He felt like he had been punched in the stomach, but he also knew that the older woman was right. He wouldn’t do anyone any good if he collapsed as soon as she woke up. He started to lean down, for a moment feeling a desire to kiss her softly, silly memories of childhood stories floating through his mind about princes waking princesses from spells with a simple kiss. He stopped, though, aware of their boss watching him carefully. He changed his direction after a moment’s hesitation and brushed a soft, chaste kiss across her brow, directly below the bandage, then hovered his mouth over her ear and whispered, barely audible even to himself. 

  
_ “Duerme bien, mi princesa.” _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're awake....but what do you remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a tad bit of spiciness...

***

Every inch of your body felt like it had been smashed with a heavy hammer. The soreness seemed to echo and reverberate up and down, through your wrists, through your calves, along your hips, up your back. Everything was black and you sluggishly realized it was because your eyes were closed. Based on the way your body was feeling, though, you didn’t have much desire to open your eyes.

You did anyway, feeling like Sisyphus hauling his boulder up a hill at the effort it took to simply lift your eyelids. Blurry daylight streamed through the vinyl shades of a window. A news program was playing on a muted television in the corner. The parts of the room you could see were stark and sparse: clearly a hospital room. You tried turning your head to survey the rest of the room and groaned, a shrieking thumping in your head threatening to send you right back into the blackness of unconsciousness you had just come from. You heard rustling coming from somewhere on your other side, out of your vision; then a wizened older woman with chin length grey hair stepped into your line of sight. She looked at you earnestly and brushed a smooth, dry palm softly across the top of your head, pushing your hair back and murmuring your name. 

You struggled to place this woman’s face….your mother? No, that wasn’t right. You got a maternal feeling from her, certainly, but this woman wasn’t your mother...so who was she? Your brain grasped to remember. 

“It’s all right,” the woman spoke and her voice was gentle but commanding, calm, steady with a flint of authority. “You’re safe. You’ve been unconscious for a while and had a nasty head injury. Take it slow...don’t push yourself too hard.” As she spoke, she pressed a recessed button next to you on the hospital bed, calling for a nurse and half asking, half ordering said nurse to get the doctor down here to check on you immediately. This woman was clearly used to having people do what she said. She sat next to you, a comforting hand resting on your forearm.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been run over.” Your voice croaked and something clicked in your mind. You flicked your eyes back to the woman. “I’m in Columbia, right?” The woman nodded slowly, her eyes searching your face. “Bogota?” Another confirmation. You carefully turned your head and stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember, feeling your mind spinning like tires in mud trying to get traction as you tried to remember what had landed you in this hospital bed. A memory of this woman’s face rose in front of you, sitting behind a large desk in an office, poring over maps and files and directing yourself and others. “Agent Dixon.” You said, flashing your eyes back to her. Her face appeared years younger as a smile spread on her lips and you made your own attempt at a small smile as memories of your mentor seeped into your mind, like water finding cracks in a sidewalk.

The doctor arrived then and proceeded to examine you, asking you questions about what you did and didn’t remember: names, dates, presidents. Already confirming that you were in Columbia, you also remembered you work as a DEA agent, having been stationed here for close to two years now. You did most of the talking while the doctor and Dixon merely asked you questions, elaborating on how you had ended up in the hospital: the DEA had been tracking a drug lord with lofty and insidious aspirations named Rafel Ortiz, an operation to capture him and his network that hadn’t gone as planned, you had been injured during the operation, though after a meaningful shared look across your hospital bed, neither Dixon nor the doctor gave any details as to said operation, nor how you had sustained your injuries. As the doctor finished up, you lifted your hand to brush a stray piece of hair that was tickling your face beneath the bandage on your head. Your eyes caught a glint of something on your finger. You stopped, remembering through a fog: photographs with you in them, a warm grip on your hand, a gentle kiss on your forehead, a panic-stricken voice filled with concern calling for you to wake up, then the same husky, low voice whispering to you to sleep well, calling you “princess”. Your eyes turned with concern from the ring on your finger to the doctor and Dixon.

“Where is he? Is he ok?” Another shared glance between the two across your bed. Your heart sank. Dixon spoke quietly after a moment.

“Where is who?”

“I don’t remember his name. The man in the pictures...he was with me in the ambulance. Where’s my husband?”

  
  


****

Javier had managed to sleep, though certainly not well. He knew he looked like shit as he stalked through the halls of the hospital. He’d managed to make himself look slightly less of a mess than yesterday after a shower and change of clothes this morning, but he didn’t feel much better. Beneath his pounding head and screaming muscles, a bubbling of worry simmered and all he wanted was to get back to the hospital and wait for his partner to open her eyes, to give him a wry smile and shoot him some teasing barb about how much worse for wear he looked than she did. 

They’d almost pulled it off, the two of them. He had felt a little ridiculous during the pre-op: having his finger measured for a ring that fit properly, posing with his partner for “engagement photos” in the small garden courtyard of the DEA office building, then changing into formal wear and recreating what would hopefully look like a sweet moment from a wedding ceremony, but was really a job of play acting in front of a blank wall in a conference room. They’d set up in the large house on the outskirts of the city, posing as a freshly arrived expat couple, newly married and looking to supplement his international banking career by padding it with up and coming connections in the cocaine trade. They’d “been married” for a little over two weeks, operating normally as agents and partners when on their own, but putting on a convincing performance as a newlywed couple when entertaining or meeting with Ortiz or any of his men.

Javier couldn’t lie to himself. He had always been attracted to his partner. She was smart, feisty, independent, strong-willed, and beautiful...oh so beautiful. When they had first started working together he had pursued her relentlessly for a grand total of three days before she had knocked him across the face and nearly twisted his hand off when he had gotten grabby. In no uncertain terms, she had made it crystal clear that no, she was not interested in sleeping with him, she had no desire to be a notch on anyone’s bedpost (much less his), that he was being an absolute pig for assuming that she was and that if he ever tried to grab her ass or any part of her again without permission she would shoot him in the dick.

That had been well on two years ago and thinking back, it was probably in that very moment when she had growled at him and he had stared up at her from where she had landed him on the bar floor, that he had started to fall for his partner. After that night, he had never made another attempt to pursue her...at least not physically. There had been times, over one too many drinks at a bar or over shitty take out or during a late night glance through the smoky haze from the cigarettes they would chain smoke, that he had seen something in her eyes. Something that had made him pause and wonder if things had perhaps changed...if maybe the needle had moved for her, if she thought differently now. They had been through so much together, had grown so close. But he had never been quite brave enough to ask. And she had so often made her opinion abundantly clear on considering him merely her partner; teasing him about being able to outrun him in a foot chase, scowling in distaste whenever his amorous methods with his informants came up, screaming at him at least twice a week for over some disagreement or another. 

He had liked being “married” to her, though. For just a little while, he had gotten a taste of what domesticity might be like for Javier Peña: jaded DEA agent. He had liked the excuse to hold her hand at dinner in a restaurant or place his hand on the small of her back while walking...all of the moments when he could give her little touches: a brush of her cheek with the back of his hand, a kiss to her temple. 

Then there had been the moments that stirred something deeper than his interest in domesticity. When she had sat on his lap after dinner and nibbled on his ear while he talked business with Ortiz. When they had attended a party the drug lord had hosted and Javi had found his hands exploring the smooth planes of her body, her fingers knotted in his hair, pressing the occasional kiss to the other’s lips as they danced recklessly until the early morning hours. He had felt like it had been real, moments like those. As though the pretense of their undercover personas gave permission for their unspoken craving for each other to float to the surface and be reality, even if just for a little while. Kisses for the benefit of their marks had seemed to linger just a few moments longer than necessary, her lips had discovered the spot on his neck below his ear that drove him crazy and seemed to just naturally end up there whenever they had to “act” married. 

Then there had been that last night before everything had fallen apart: the two of them pressed together for a moment in panic, trying to keep themselves hidden from the suspicious gaze of Ortiz’s men...then suddenly pressed together like lovers, hands under clothes, groping and grappling for purchase on each others’ skin wherever they could find it, the smell of the plumeria trees wafting over them. Javi knew it had only been to cover the fact that they had been snooping somewhere they shouldn’t have been, but he couldn’t shake the way that moment had made him feel: as though suddenly every barrier and wall that separated he and his partner had crashed and crumbled between them. If they hadn’t been discovered as DEA later that evening Javi wondered what might have happened when they had returned to “their” house….

No. He couldn’t let himself dwell on those kinds of “what ifs” right now. He shook himself as he rounded the corner and spotted Dixon and the doctor standing outside your hospital door, speaking intently. As he approached, Dixon glanced at him and both of them abruptly stopped talking.

“Peña, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the office? I’m sure you have a report to fill out...” Javi shot her an annoyed look.

“I just wanted to stop by on my way, see how she’s doing….” He trailed off, looking back and forth between Dixon and the doctor, waiting for one or both of them to give him an update. When none came, he irritatedly asked, “Well?….How’s she doing?” Worry tugged at him as he saw the look that passed between them.

“Agent Peña…” Dixon said slowly. She gestured to one of the crappy plastic chairs along the wall outside the rooms. “Have a seat. We need to talk.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javi finally gets to see you. Soft Javi!!

***

You’re not sure how much time has passed since you were last awake. After Dixon and the doctor had left your room, you had found yourself dozing, slipping in and out of sleep. The next time you woke, though, the light through the window had changed direction and gotten softer; much of the day had passed as you had slipped in and out of sleep. You heard the door to your room quietly clicking open and you turned your head to see the doctor entering your room again. Behind him was Dixon and…

Your breath caught in your chest and you felt tears sting behind your eyes. The man from the photographs entered the room cautiously, his eyes locked on you. You could read the worry behind his dark eyes and a question there as well. Your brain flailed, searching, trying to remember his name as he made his way to your bedside.

“Hey.” He said softly by way of greeting. His eyes were soft and searched yours like he was looking for something, too, but he shot you a tender smile and brushed a strand of hair away from your face as he spoke. “How you feelin’?”

Before you could answer, the doctor cut in.

“This is the man you mentioned earlier today? The one from the pictures?” You nodded, still looking at him, slightly hypnotized by his puppy dog brown eyes. 

“Yes. Your name is…” Your brows knit together thinking, trying desperately to remember. As the silence of your struggle stretched longer, the man leaned down and took your hand in one of his and gave it a squeeze.

“Javi.” He said hoarsely. “Javier.” The name landed in your mind. It sounded familiar, but it didn’t click the same way it had for Dixon. But you were certain that you knew this man. Without any real memories of him, something inside of you was sure that you had a strong relationship with him. That you could, perhaps, trust him more than anyone else in your life at this moment. 

“Javi.” You said the name slowly, as though testing the sound of it with your own voice. “You’re...my husband, I think? I saw our picture and…” You raised your hand to show your ring and looked at his own hands that were resting on the bed, one of your hands still clasped in his. Noticing no ring on his left hand, your eyes swung back up to his face, confused. He glanced down, realizing what was missing, then flicked his gaze up to Dixon for an instant before he settled his gaze back on you and smiled softly again.

“I, uh...I had to take it off.” He murmured by way of explanation. “It...had blood on it...It needs to be cleaned.” He took the hand he held in his and clasped it in both of his now, raising your knuckles carefully to his lips and pressing a soft kiss there.

You didn’t realize the tears you had felt in your eyes earlier were so close to overflowing. But that small gesture of sweetness from this kind man that was also your husband and who so clearly loved you sent the floodgates open wide, and before you could stop yourself, you started to cry.

****

Javi’s heart nearly broke when he had caught sight of her as he had entered the room. His heart broke even more at the question he had seen in her eyes when she studied his face. When she had grappled to find his name, he had barely been able to speak, and when she had looked at him in confusion when she hadn’t seen a ring on his finger, he felt like his chest would pop like a balloon. 

_ “There’s a chance she might wake up later tonight and have her memories fully returned, maybe next week, or maybe…ah, well...” The doctor had cleared his throat as he spoke to him and Dixon before they had entered her room. “Let her find the memories herself. If they’re there, they’ll come to her in time. But whatever you do, do not lie to her. She has no reason to really trust you right now, even though she believes the two of you are married; you are essentially a stranger to her, one that now she’s just expected to trust the way she did before she lost her memory. As her memories start coming back to her, even little ones or ones that seem insignificant, if the things you tell her while she can’t remember turn out to be a lie, it will make her ability to confidently reacquire future memories that much more difficult.” _

_ “But, we’re NOT married! If I pretend that we are, isn’t that lying to her?”  _

_ “You’re right, Agent Peña. But it’s very important these first few days that we proceed with caution when it comes to her memory. The brain and memory are fickle things that we really don’t know all that much about as far as the human body goes. Right now, we need to play along with what she  _ **_believes_ ** _ is true. You’ll need to be very careful about the way you interact with her. The fact that she was asking for you as her husband leads me to think that there may be more than just physical trauma...I worry, given the situation she was in immediately prior to her injury, that some of her amnesia may be due to psychological trauma as well. She finds the idea of being married to you familiar right now...perhaps even safe. We need to see that she’s fully healed physically first and determine how much of her memory loss is due to those injuries, then we can proceed in healing the memory loss that may have come from the mental aspect.” _

_ “Peña,” Dixon had said. “The two of you were already playing a couple. You’ll just keep doing it.” Javi had snorted at the way his boss had made it sound so simple. “I’m sure she’ll start remembering soon. Just don’t lie to her, like he said.” _

Those words rang through his head now:  _ Don’t lie, don’t lie, don’t lie to her. _ He looked at Dixon for a moment, but her eyes were wide, staring back at him; no help whatsoever.

So he had told her the truth...mostly. The ring he had been wearing undercover  **had** gotten blood on it. It  **would** need to be cleaned before he could put it on again. He had left it in the soap dish on his bathroom sink last night before dragging himself into his bed. He would have to remember to put it back on the next time he saw his partner.

He had kissed her hand on a whim and he panicked after, feeling the remaining shards of his heart that had broken earlier turn to sand as he saw tears fill her eyes and start to trickle down her cheeks. His brow furrowed and he looked worriedly at the doctor, afraid he had done something to hurt her. The doctor moved to the other side of the bed and said her name questioningly.

“Are you alright? Are you in pain?” He asked, reaching to feel her pulse in her wrist. She shook her head weakly.

“No, I’m fine. I just…” Her glassy eyes had turned back to meet Javi’s gaze. “I just don’t remember you. I know we’re married but...I can’t remember anything about you...about us.” She squeezed her eyes closed as tears fell harder. Javi couldn’t help himself, he leaned over and pressed another gentle kiss into her hair, murmuring softly so that only she could hear..

“Hey. Hey, hey...shhhh. It’s ok. Shhhh...don’t cry, cariño. It’s gonna be ok.”

He hoped with every fiber of his being that he was right.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're released from the hospital, and Javi sets up house. While doing so, he stumbles across a couple of things that make him feel all kinds of ways!

***

You were released from the hospital two days later under the stipulation that you were to rest and were not to return to any kind of active field duty until fully cleared by the doctor and his medical team. Over the course of those two days, some of your memories had seeped back in, like figures appearing through thick fog and slowly taking form and shape. But, it seemed to you, not any of the really important ones were returning. You remembered now some specific events from the last two years of your time as an agent: big busts you had made, critical incidents that had ended badly for your agency, colleagues that had been lost in the line of duty. You had been able to recall many details of your work against the worst of the drug cartels in Colombia from the last two years and even further back...but most memories of things from the past three or four weeks were still a grey void with nothing in them, not even shadows to hint at memories waiting there in the fog.

You were rarely alone at the hospital: if Dixon was not sitting at your bedside, then Javi was there in her place. Between the two of them, you had managed to scrape together some large pieces that were missing about your relationships: you had worked with Dixon earlier in your career in San Diego and when she had risen in ranks and earned a seat down here in the thick of things, she had brought you along with her. You had the feeling that she viewed you as a bit of a protege and you felt confident that the memories you had of her support and backing of you were true. Memories about your relationship with Javi proved to be a bit more difficult to get confirmation on. While both Dixon and Javi were very willing to discuss and confirm anything you asked about your mentor, when you inquired or asked for clarification on your history with your husband, both agents seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering you. Dixon was more guarded than Javi and the older woman would often change the subject as quickly as she could when you asked her about your husband. You got a distinct sense that she did not approve of your marriage to the man you had been partnered with during your time here.

You remembered that was how you had met Javi; you had been assigned as his partner. You remembered the earliest days of working with him: how he had flirted with you and you had rebuffed him, how there had been moments when your partnership had skated the line of something more. But it was only the older memories that seemed to come clearly to you...the closer to present day you came, the emptier your memories became. You had tried to remember when exactly your relationship with Javi had made the jump from work partner to life partner. When and how had the two of you told each other how you felt? And you had zero memories of a proposal, a wedding....no memories at all of how it felt to touch and be touched by the handsome man who spent hours sitting in comfortable silence next to your bed. You couldn’t bring yourself to ask him questions about those things...not yet.

Surprisingly, Dixon was the one who escorted you when you were released. After the older woman saw you carefully buckled into the passenger seat of the car, you inquired as to why Javi wasn’t the one driving you home. Dixon’s eye flickered behind her dark sunglasses, and she mumbled something about him getting your apartment ready for you. She assured you that he would be waiting at your home when you got there.

Your home. For a moment, your stomach sank, thinking about how you would be going back to a place that was foreign to you but was supposed to be a safe haven, a refuge, the home you shared with a husband you were supposed to be in love with. Would you remember any of it? Would anything that you found there help jog anything loose in your memory?

You could only hope.

***

“Fuck!”

Javi growled as he struggled to keep a box from teetering off the pile of other boxes that it was precariously stacked on. His hands were full of his clothes on hangers, halfway between the box he had just removed them from and the clothing pole in the closet. He had been struggling most of the morning with lugging half of his possessions down the two flights of stairs of their shared apartment building and trying to make it appear as though he had lived in this apartment for longer than a few hours. Both he and Dixon had agreed it would be best for her to return to familiar surroundings...but they still needed to keep up the premise that the two of you shared a life together.

Javi had never given much thought to domesticity. The closest he had ever come was Lorraine...and the brief moment of introspection he had had when he had seen her those several years ago at that wedding. Thoughts had crossed his mind then: what would it be like to have a wife, to wear a ring on his finger, to have promised himself to someone forever? To have a future that was shared with another person? To make important decisions with another person and not just on your own? To have 2.5 kids and a house? But he hadn’t spent too much time dwelling on it simply because none of that was really who Javi was, was completely unimaginable to him. He had never once really thought that sort of life would ever be one he would want, much less be able to live. And, quite honestly, he wasn’t all that sure that that kind of life was one that he deserved.

Now, it seemed, life was playing a little gag on him: turns out maybe there WAS a way for him to see if married life was for him...although he did hate the fact that his partner had had to be injured in the process. 

One thing he was certain of at the moment, though: if getting married and divvying up and combining possessions was as big a pain in the ass for real as it was for this farce?...Well, that was a strike against matrimony in his opinion.

At first he had merely grabbed a small duffle bag full of items; things he thought he might leave at a woman’s house if he was spending the night or a weekend: a change of clothes, toiletries, firearm. But when he had let himself into her apartment two floors below his in their building, it had struck him that that wasn’t going to be good enough. 

Her apartment was lived in. Unlike his own, which he realized now seemed a little sterile and cold, her’s was warm and (though not a word he often used in his vocabulary) cozy. She had artwork on the walls, shelves full of books from all different genres...even a few board games and some well-worn records on the record player stand. He spotted a rolled up yoga mat under a bench beneath the window and a couple of handwritten recipes and smiling photos tucked under bright magnets on the refrigerator. Her bedroom smelled of lavender and soft vanilla; the bed was neatly made (again, unlike his own) and dirty clothes resided in a hamper rather than tossed carelessly into a corner. The spare room that served as an office housed neatly organized work related content and photo albums of people from home, holiday decorations stashed under the guest bed; her closet had her clothes neatly organized (by color, who knew!?). He had quickly come to the conclusion that he might need to put a bit more effort into this charade.

So he had proceeded to spend the next several hours being swept into a whirlwind of imagining what a shared space would look like if the two of them were actually married. He had started with the few books he had in his own apartment; a few biographies, some car magazines and a ratty copy of “The Art of War” and “The Hobbit”. He had jammed them onto the neat bookshelves in her living room before returning quickly with some of his own records: some Cumbia records and an Eagles album, which he shuffled in with her own Steely Dan, Creedence Clearwater and Three Dog Night. 

He didn’t have much to contribute to the kitchen besides a few bottles of whiskey and a bottle of tequila next to her own bottles of red wine. He had pulled a photo taken when he graduated from high school from his wallet and placed it on the fridge next to one of her with her huge family. He paused a moment to assess the contrast in the two pictures: her in the midst of her five older brothers and parents, all wearing matching Christmas sweaters...him standing bashfully and stiffly next to his dad, who grinned proudly at the camera, one arm awkwardly slung over a teenage Javi’s shoulder. The bathroom didn’t take long, either. He added his razor, a bottle of Old Spice, and his toothbrush and comb; he glanced into the medicine cabinet as he placed his deodorant there and eyed what looked suspiciously like a package of prescription birth control...his mind started to wander and he slammed the cabinet door shut, heading back upstairs to his apartment for another load. 

He had strong-armed his clothes still on the hangers into some file boxes to make them easier to carry down the stairs, then had hauled shoes, underthings, suits, jeans, and (what he had not really realized until this moment) a ridiculous amount of the same style shirt in different colors downstairs and was now trying to wedge them into one half of her closet, trying to make it look like they had been there for a while and doing his best to not become buried by the haphazardly stacked boxes. Once the last set of shoes was stuffed into the closet next to a pair of sky high red heels he had never seen her wear before, (he was CERTAIN he would have remembered those) he opened the dresser to shove his socks and underwear into a drawer and gulped. Staring back at him was a drawer full of his partner’s bras and panties. 

For a moment he felt like a creep pawing through her underwear drawer, but he steeled himself and carefully nudged the sensible pieces of cotton material to one side of the drawer. As the material shifted, he spotted a brief flash of red lace and something that could be black and leather, but he refused to investigate any further; he could feel his face flushing and his heart pounding harder. He dumped his own underwear into the drawer and shoved it closed, sighing with relief and opening the next one; socks wouldn’t cause his mind to wander into dangerous territory nearly as badly! He carefully shoved the rolls of clothing to the side to make room for his own once again and felt his hand hit something. His breath hitched as he uncovered what was very obviously a vibrator. Next to it was a tube of lube and a small box about the size of a deck of cards. Try as he might, he could not stop himself from carefully tilting open the lid of the box...Javi was quite educated when it came to knowing his way around a woman, but he was clueless as to the purpose or use of the two small colored balls nestled into the velvet inside of the box...although he was pretty sure he at least knew where they were supposed to go. 

His mind clouded with images of his partner stretched out on the bed behind him, bringing herself to orgasm using these items and he felt himself harden in his jeans. He let out a puff of air and carefully nudged the items to the other side of the drawer, reburying them beneath the socks as they had been before. He piled in his own footwear, then shakily closed the drawer, still trying to blink away the images playing out in his mind. He wondered what her face would look like as she came apart. What did she sound like? Did she cry out when she reached her peak? What would his name sound like tumbling from her lips in the middle of her climax, what would she taste like…?

He stormed out of the bedroom, furious at himself for going down that path. He felt like a pervert, getting so turned on after snooping through her personal effects. He was angry at Dixon for insisting that they do this; but he was frustrated at himself, more. He shouldn’t be going through her things like this. He splashed some cold water on his face from the kitchen sink and trudged back up to his own apartment, pacing for a while once he got there, trying to both ease his erection as well as determine what else he should bring with him back to her apartment. His eyes settled on the shoulder case that had been retrieved from the house that had been used in the undercover operation. He pulled out the two framed photographs that had been next to “their” bed; the photos that she had referenced when she had first woken up. He stared at them, thinking that if he hadn’t been present at the time they had been taken, he would have believed they were real, too...that they were actual photographs of two people madly in love with each other. 

Maybe…

No. He stuck both pictures under his arms, grabbed another box filled with work files, tossed his favorite ashtray and lighter in the box along with one or two small tchotkes, a couple of coasters and a small plastic plant from the window sill, and made one more trip down the stairs. He dispersed the items randomly throughout her apartment, thinking to himself that it at least gave a more unified image of two different people existing within the same space. 

He hauled the box of paperwork into her second bedroom converted into an office space and plopped it down on the desk, taking one or two folders and strewing them about the top of the desk, again in stark contrast to her own organized, neat piles. It started to reflect their separate desks at work now, which he found convincing. He sat in the desk chair for a minute and quickly shuffled through the small desk drawers, double checking for anything glaring that might be difficult to explain. As he opened the bottom drawer, his eye caught a blue leather bound notebook. Flipping through it, he saw pages and pages of writing in his partner’s familiar handwriting. As he thumbed through, he was startled to spot his name on one page. He carefully flipped back, scanning the writing and was surprised to find that it actually appeared quite often. He turned a page and began reading from the beginning:

**_"Everything sometimes feels so incredibly heavy here. The job, the humidity, the pressure of being a woman in this man’s arena. I hate it! I hate that I have to be strong all the damn time. I hate that it feels like I can’t seek the same comforts as other women...even if I have insisted that it be this way. I’m so grateful and proud of myself...most of the time...like 95.5% of the time. The other times, I just wish I could let myself cry when something heartbreaking happens. When someone says something scathing that hurts my feelings at work. When I watch Javi go off to sleep with yet another woman._ **

**_Javi. That feels so heavy all of the time, too. I can’t seem to ever level myself out when it comes to him. Some days he drives me absolutely insane and I want nothing more than to bash his face in with a paperweight. Other days, I just want him to put his arms around me and hold me. Not do anything or say anything, just hold me tight…because he is, truthfully, the only single person that I trust._ **

**_And yet, am I fooling myself in saying that...in saying that I trust him? Because do I really? If I really trusted him, why don’t I just go to him? He only lives two floors up. Why can’t I knock on his door and fling myself into his arms and kiss him and feel what it’s like to press my body against his? Why can’t I bring myself to do that? Well...probably because I don’t really ACTUALLY trust him...not with that part of myself. Javi is the man I want having my back in a shootout...but is he the man I want to be next to me every night when I fall asleep and every morning when I wake up? I dream about him sometimes...about him being in my bed with me, but we’re usually not sleeping...we’re doing everything but. I dream about it and then I wake up feeling empty because he’s not there, because it wasn’t real. The emptiness is heavy, too."_ **

Javi clapped the journal shut, feeling his stomach churn. He shouldn’t have read that and guilt thrummed through him. These were her private thoughts; never meant for anyone else but her to read. Once again he felt like an intruder and he loathed himself...Dixon...that asshole Ortiz...for putting both of them in this situation. He dragged a hand over his face, growling low in his throat. He looked down at the box at his feet, still open with a few files and the two photographs staring back up at him. He reached in and took out one framed picture, sitting it upright on the desk: the “engagement” photo. He took the “wedding” picture out and then tossed the journal into the box, carrying both items from the home office. He carefully set up the photo on a bookshelf in the living room, then put the lid back on the box and headed back up the stairs to drop the box off in his apartment and lock up. Before he left, though, he made sure to slip the freshly cleaned gold band onto his left ring finger.

His wife would be coming home any minute now.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I really went back and forth as to whether or not Javi would recognize or know about Ben Wa balls....and I'm still not entirely sure where I've landed. The man knows sex but does he know sex toys? Thoughts? Discuss...


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home from the hospital, you settle into your home with Javi and continue trying to remember...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uggghhh!!! So I apologize for taking so long to update. I was pushing through to finish my other story (my very first actually COMPLETED work that I've ever posted, YAY!) and I finally finished. But now I feel a little stalled with this one, but I'm just getting back into it...apparently once you start writing Pedro character fan fiction this crazy thing happens where your brain just kind of opens like floodgates and suddenly ALLLLL the stories for ALLLL the characters start screaming to be written. It's going to be a ride, for sure! 
> 
> Anywhos, I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter but, like I said, I'm mostly just trying to get back into the story. I may change it completely as I keep writing. 
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much for reading and commenting. Feedback is greatly appreciated!
> 
> Be well

***

You come home from the hospital on a Friday midmorning and spend much of the day resting in bed...it seems like the simple task of walking up your apartment steps takes so much out of you. When you enter the apartment, Javi greets you carefully, timidly, giving you a gentle and almost awkward hug around the shoulders and watches you carefully as you gaze around. When you catch him looking at you, he inquires if you’re hungry. You admit that you are and he goes to work reheating the food he had had the insight to order. He gets you situated at the table with a glass of water and your food and joins you soon after. As the two of you eat, you notice a small bouquet of flowers in the middle of the kitchen table and when you ask your husband about them, he dips his head and grunts something about being from some of the guys at work. 

You chat idly during lunch and spend some time looking at the pictures on the refrigerator door and tracing your fingers along the spines of the books on the bookshelf in contemplation while Javi cleans up after. You pick up the wedding photo of the two of you from a bookshelf and trace a finger along the sliver of distance separating the two of you in the picture, casting your thoughts into the empty depths of your recent memory, trying to remember this moment, this day. You sense him behind you and replace the frame quickly where it was before turning and mentioning to Javier that you're a little worn out; he immediately encourages you to lie down and rest, ushering you towards the bedroom before leaving you alone for privacy to change.

Opening your closet door, you quickly find a pair of sweatpants. As you search for a shirt, your eyes slip from the side of the closet that is obviously yours and over to your husband’s side. You notice a lovely purple colored button-up on the edge of the rack and reach for it without thinking, pulling it over your head, breathing deeply as it passes over your face. You plan to take it off, but your eyes can’t seem to open once the worn-soft material is settled on your skin. Even though it’s silly and it's just a shirt, something about knowing that it’s one of your husband’s seems to cocoon you with comfort and peace. Which, you know, is crazy: this man...your husband...this level of intimacy with your former partner at this moment could make him practically a stranger. But this feels...right. You reach for another shirt, then another, then one of yours...you pull a dress off a hanger, then a suit jacket from Javier’s side. You bury your face in each item, hoping that something will knock loose. That something will blow the fog from your mind. 

You’re not sure how much time has passed when you hear him tap on the bedroom door and you shake yourself from where you’ve settled on the closet floor. You call to him quietly, your voice ringing loudly in the small space that surrounds you and a few moments later you hear his concerned voice as he realizes where you are, his voice rising an octave as he says your name. 

“Hey! What happened? Are you ok?” You can hear the concern in his voice as he rushes to you, traipsing over the pieces of clothing surrounding you and dropping to his knees next to you, filling the small walk-in closet with his presence, making it seem even smaller with the two of you crouched on the floor. He cups your face in his hands carefully, turning you up to look at him, searching your eyes for any sign of pain. You take in a pull of air at the sudden intimacy of the touch and his closeness. His scent washes over you: Old Spice and cigarette smoke and something that is distinctly manly, distinctly Javi. You carefully touch his wrist with one hand, trying to reassure him.

“I’m fine,” you say, huffing out a small laugh and gently pulling your face away from his hands. He doesn’t believe you. “No, really, I’m ok. I just…” you gesture around at the clothes and shoes and belts and ties hanging in the closet, one side carefully arranged by color, the other looking as though it had been haphazardly shoved onto the rack in five minutes without much thought. You duck your head, feeling slightly stupid. “...I was...smelling.” You can barely get the last word out. Javi looks at you confused for a few moments. You glance up at him just as you see understanding cross his face as he surveys the clothing you’re clutching in your hands and covering your lap, next to you on the floor. 

“You were trying to remember…?” You nod miserably, trying to avoid his gaze. He puts two fingers under your chin and carefully lifts your face to look at him. His eyes are kind, sympathetic, curious. “Any luck?” You shake your head, sadly.

“No, not...not really. Not much more than I’ve already remembered.” You suddenly feel even more tired than when you had first arrived, not just physically but as though your brain is ten times too large for your head and filled with slippery sand. You feel your body sag against his hand and he reaches his arm around your shoulder, supporting you. He takes the salmon colored button-up of his that you’re holding clutched to your chest and tosses it into the pile of other clothes, then carefully helps you to your feet. He gently steers you to the bed, arranging you there before tenderly pulling a soft blanket up over you, flicking on the small lamp next to the bed. He moves to close the curtains, darkening the space and his shadow whispers from across the room that he’ll be right back. You feel yourself getting sleepy as you relax into the pillows, Javi’s touch and scent a comforting echo.

As promised he returns a few minutes later and places several items on the nightstand: a glass of water, some magazines, a book with a bookmark in it, the cordless phone, a piece of paper, and a handgun...your firearm, you realize.

He arranges them in order of least to greatest importance it seems: the phone, paper and water closest to you. He sits next to you on the bed as you settle yourself more deeply into the pillow, suddenly finding it nearly impossible to keep your eyes open. Half of his face is hidden in the shadow cast from the soft lamp light; the image he cuts is reminiscent of the space he takes up in your memory: mysterious, half hidden in darkness...but comforting and caring.

“I need to go in to work for a few hours.” His voice is low and gentle and washes over you like a lullaby. He brushes your hair out of your face, his sudden touch causing your droopy eyes to open wide again suddenly. He removes his hand quickly, as though your gaze on him burns him. He swallows hard and nods towards the night stands. “The office number and my pager number are written down, so if you need anything at all, you call me...ok?” You nod sleepily and he stands, tucking you under the blanket more carefully, checking if you need anything else. When you shake your head, he nods and you see him hesitate for several long moments, hovering over you, seemingly partaking in some great inner struggle. Then he carefully leans down and presses a soft kiss to your forehead. He pulls away and whispers into your hair. “I’ll be back soon. You rest, cariño.” Then he reaches over and snaps off the lamp…

...and then, just like your memories of him, your husband is gone in the dark.

+

+

+

+

You’re not sure how much time passes, but when you wake up, the apartment is still empty and the shadows have drifted from one side of the room to the other. Feeling refreshed, you move carefully around the apartment, investigating the little things that make up a person’s home. Your grumbling stomach directs you back into the kitchen and you rummage through cabinets after finding nothing much edible in the refrigerator. Finding a package of pasta and an unopened jar of sauce you start water to boiling and as you wait, you’re drawn back to the refrigerator as you pour yourself another glass of water. You remove the photo of Javier in a graduation cap and gown with...his father? It must be. You smile as you study the slightly blurry photo featuring a younger version of Javi and seek out resemblance between your husband's face and that of the older man in the photo. You see similarity in his father’s eyes, perhaps, along with an extreme amount of pride. You wonder if you’ve met him? Was he at your wedding? 

Thoughts of your wedding cause you to go wandering again back into the living room and back to the wedding photo on the bookshelf. You pick it up and carry it around the room with you as you continue your investigation. You recognize some of the pictures and artwork hanging on the wall: that painting was from a brief stint you did in Cuba. That ceremonial mask you found at a floating market in Cambodia. And that pencil drawing you had picked up at a Saturday flea market while visiting a colleague in Atlanta. You remember what a headache it had been shipping your belongings here two years ago...how customs had had such a field day keeping your stuff detained and how you had lived in this stark apartment for three weeks before Dixon and the Embassy had stepped in and your things had finally been delivered. 

By that time, you remember, you had already made two lab busts, witnessed a fairly violent interrogation, been shot at twice and had raced through the streets of Bogota after a group of sicarios. You had also already fended off multiple advances from her handsome partner, Javier Peña, which had culminated when he had slid his hand up her inner thigh, resulting in your socking him across the chin and knocking him off his stool in the crowded work bar. You grinned at that memory, then your grin faded as a new image took its place: it was blurry, muted, like listening to a cassette tape that was playing at a ten times slower speed, warped and in slow motion...only playing out in images. You remembered a man’s hand sliding up your inner thigh, brushing against you. You couldn’t see the man’s face, couldn't tell anything else about him other than he was hovering above you. Was it your husband? You didn’t think so. Javi might feel like a stranger to you right now, but you knew in your very core that he was safe, that he was good...kind. But you felt cold at the memory of this man.

Then just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, and you were just left holding the picture frame, standing in front of your record player.

***

Javi heard the music halfway down the building staircase. He thinks about knocking, but he doubts she’d be able to hear him over the music. He juggled the grocery bags in his arms, fishing her apartment key out of his jacket pocket and struggling to get the door open. When he does finally manage, the sounds of Three Dog Night covering “Your Song” nearly bowls him over. He deposits the groceries on the kitchen table, startled to find a pot of nearly empty water steaming and popping, having boiled over on the stove. He clicks off the heat, removes the scorched pot, then steps into the living room to find his partner sitting on the floor in front of the record player, sleeves and vinyl records strewn around her, her back against the living room couch. The “wedding” photo has been moved and is sitting on the coffee table at eye level. She stares at the photo of the two of you, her brow furrowed in concentration. He can see frustration behind her eyes, too, and he notices that her eyes are puffy and red. She’s clearly been crying.

He moves to the player and turns the volume down. She barely registers his presence until he sits next to her on the couch. The movement on the cushions behind her startles her and she jumps, jerking away from him.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa…” Javi leans away, his hands raised. “It’s just me.” Recognition crosses her face and she settles back into her previous position, sighing heavily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” 

“No. I’m sorry. I was...I wasn’t paying attention.” She looks back at the photograph in front of her. Javi looks at it, too, then back at her, studying her face. She turns to him, and he sees her eyes sparkling with tears building up there, filled with questions. Javi juts his chin towards the blaring player.

“I never have understood why you like these guys so much.” He smiles at her, hoping to distract her. She returns his smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, still reflecting the sadness he sees in there. She gestures to the scattered records on the floor.

“I was trying to remember again. I thought...I thought maybe a song might help me remember something. I got to looking at our wedding picture and thought maybe I could remember a song we danced to or something. I…” her brows lowered over her eyes and she seemed to be studying something in the distance that only she could see. “I keep remembering…” Javi looks at her eagerly but he doesn’t rush her. “You and me...at least, I _ think _ it's you and me...dancing somewhere. It’s like watching a silent movie with all of the faces blacked out, like witness protection, and everything in the background is blurry, like it’s out of focus. But I’m…” her voice trails off again and she looks up into his face curiously. “I’m almost sure it’s you. We’re at some kind of...celebration I think, like maybe a club or something? I thought maybe…” Another hesitation. “I thought maybe it was our wedding. Maybe some music added with what I can remember might clear the other stuff up, but…” She shakes her head. “Nothing seems to be working.” Back to him again. “Do we go dancing a lot or something? Did we have a song? Like a song we danced to a lot, like at our wedding?”

Javi gulps, not quite sure how to answer all of her questions. He thinks for a moment.

“We, uh….no, we don’t really...we don’t really go out dancing or anything like that. Work keeps us pretty busy.”  _ That’s all true _ , he thinks to himself.  _ No lies. _ He’s more careful with the next of her questions. “We didn’t...that…” he gestures at the photo, avoiding using the term “our wedding”. “...Was pretty informal. There wasn’t a reception or anything. It was small. We didn’t have dancing or anything like that.” She nods in understanding. “And we don’t…” he shakes his head. “No song or anything…” he chuckles a little. “I’m more of a rock, country kind of guy, we never really seem to agree on taste in music.”  _ Also true, _ he thinks, recalling the multiple arguments they’ve had over the radio station on stakeouts and when driving to locations throughout the city. She smiles distractedly, mumbling something about how it must be an older memory with someone else, then. She seems to think of something.

“I saw the picture on the fridge of you and your dad. Have I met him? When we got married or anything like that? I can’t remember him.” Javi shakes his head, again thinking for a moment before answering.

“No, you’ve never met. He doesn’t really travel much, he’s got the ranch back home to worry about. He hasn’t had a chance to make it down.”

“So we got married here? In Columbia?” Javi felt his throat stick...this was dangerous territory; surely she would want to know about her own family, whether they had come down for the “nuptials”.

He and Dixon (along with her doctor) had spent the afternoon on the phone with her parents and family in America, filling them in on the situation. Over the course of their conversations, they had all agreed that, should she reach out to any of them, they would also play along with the “married to Javier” ruse for as long as it seemed to be appropriate. Javi had heard the uncertainty in their voices when they had inquired as to just how carefully Javier would be “looking after” her. He had done his best to assure them that he would respect their daughter and sister, that he would do everything he could to abide by their relationship boundaries prior to her memory loss. And, he had reiterated what the doctor had said from the beginning; he had promised them that he would not lie to her. Realistically, though, everyone had walked away from the conversation understanding that he may very well have to bend some boundaries in this situation. By the end of the conversation, the family had given him their blessing and had made him promise to stay in regular contact with them. He had been exhausted when he had left work, feeling the weight of his partner’s recovery on his shoulders. 

But he wouldn’t have it any other way; she was his partner. He would have her back no matter what.

“It was...sort of spur of the moment, happened pretty fast.” Before she could ask any more questions he sat up straight and smacked his palms on his legs. “Hey, are you hungry? I haven't eaten all day and I got some stuff-”

“Oh God! I started some water boiling and…” she jumped from her spot on the floor. Javi stood at the same time. 

“Yeah...we’re probably gonna need a new pot.” She looked at him sheepishly, mumbling an apology. He gives her a teasing grin and for a moment it felt like before: giving her a good natured hard time and her ready to fire back at him, both of them comfortable with the ribbing back and forth. 

But then she crossed her arms in front of her chest and he felt the barrier of unfamiliarity rise between them again. 

+

+

+

\+ 

  
  


They fall into a familiar ease as they go about preparing dinner. Javi is reassured by how easily she becomes comfortable with him. The moments when she had jerked away from him when he was near her had him a little worried, but there are none of that now, as they move around each other, next to each other. 

“Why don’t you let me deal with the sauce,” she says over the soft sounds of music coming from the radio in the window. She puts a gentle hand on his bicep and pushes just slightly to move him away. “You always oversalt things anyway.” Javi chuckled and shifted over to the pork chops in the pan...it took him a moment to register what she had just said.

“Hey!” He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “You remember that?” She seems startled by the fact that, yes, in fact, she did remember that. She looked at him, a dazed smile on her face. 

“I guess...yeah, I do remember saying that to you before.” 

“Yeah,” he grins, nodding at her encouragingly. “You never let me cook anything...you claim I put too much salt on stuff because-” She cuts him off and finishes the thought as it comes to her.

“-You’ve scorched all your tastebuds from smoking like a chimney!” Her eyes light up in delight when he chuckles, affirming that that’s exactly what she always says. She laughs carefully, following the memory, seeing if it might lead her to anything else. 

Javi recalls other nights like this one when, either in his apartment or hers, when they have worked together to make a meal, moving in unison just like they did tonight, just like they do at work. He had never allowed himself to venture any further past the thought of:  _ we make a good team _ . More than once, Javier had found himself lightheaded and felt his heart tug as he gazed at his partner through a cloud of smoke from his cigarette, watching her laugh across the table at something he had said, appreciating the way she would curl herself into a ball with her feet tucked beneath her on the couch as they watch some terrible movie, admiring the curve of her neck or the rounding of her hips and backside as she stood at the sink to do dishes.

He glanced at her now, his gaze taking in that same curve of a neck, drifting upwards to her face, studying the shape of her nose, the flush of pink across her cheeks from the stove heat and the memory. He marveled at how long her eyelashes were and was hypnotized everytime she blinked and they brushed against her face. A wisp of hair fell out of her ponytail and across her forehead; she tried to blow it out of the way without stopping what she was doing. Not thinking, he reached out and brushed the strand away from her skin, his fingertips ghosting across her face. She started only a little, nothing like the other times he had touched her. He pulled his hand back quickly, realizing he had been lulled by the domesticity of the moment, allowed himself to lapse into an intimacy that he did not actually have with his partner…

...when she turned her face to his, he was startled by what he saw in her eyes. A curiosity flitted across her face, but in her eyes he very clearly saw want, saw desire. She tilted her head upwards towards him a little bit more and he felt her body, already close to his, almost imperceptibly shift and lean into him ever more so slightly. It was an invitation, a go ahead. His eyes drifted down to her mouth and he felt himself stir when her lips parted and he saw the tip of her tongue streak across from one corner to another, wetting the skin. His heart started pounding. Luckily, the buzzing of a timer saved him from having to analyze what to do next. He had never removed something from the oven so fast in his life! The charged moment was blessedly broken and as they put the final touches on their meal, he was careful to keep his distance. 

They enjoyed their food, their conversation mostly about older memories from when they first worked together, which didn’t require him to be quite as cautious with his words. They were memories she already had, things she knew. As they finished, she started clearing plates while Javi ran water in the sink. As though by habit, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and started washing while she started drying and (he noted) putting dishes away confidently, as though she remembered where every plate and utensil belonged. As he was finishing the last tray, a familiar song filtered through the radio speakers. His head came up and he started.

“Oh! That  _ was _ us!” He said excitedly. When she just looked at him in confusion he dried his hands on the towel and spoke quickly. “The memory you were talking about earlier, of us dancing. It  _ was _ us.” He nodded towards the radio as a sultry dance tune played. “A few weeks ago, we were….ahhh...we were at a birthday party. It was in a club like you said and...yeah, this song was playing. And you and I danced to it.” 

He felt his cheeks color as he recalled exactly how they had danced after a few tequila shots with Ortiz and their guise as a couple in full swing. He had never wanted anyone as badly as he had wanted her that night, one hand gripping her wiggling hips, pressing her ass back against him, the other tracing up her outer thigh, pulling the hem of her already deliciously short skirt higher so he could access the soft skin there. She had pressed herself back into his chest, had lifted her arms above her head and behind his neck, one hand gripping in his hair, the other gently caressing the side of his face, stroking his ear, pulling his lips down to that spot on her exposed neck…

He gulped as he refocused his concentration on looking for more dishes to wash. “I...forgot about it. But you were right. That was us.” He released the plug in the soapy water and looked at her. “That was a recent one! A recent memory. From during the…” he caught himself before he said “undercover op.” “...During the time you haven't been able to remember.” Her face lit up, then fell again almost instantly. 

“It’s so random, though. And it's taken so long just to remember that one thing…and not very well, it seems.” 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” When she still looked frustrated he gently touched her shoulder. “Be patient with yourself, ok. We’ve all just gotta...we all just need to be patient.” He sighed and gave her a smile. “But, hey! This is really great, right?” She said nothing, just looked at him forlornly. “Come on, it is! You’ve remembered something recent.” When she merely shrugged and stayed quiet, he propped a hand against the counter and leaned on it, jutting out a hip and putting a fist on his waist. He leaned forward and stared into her face until she made eye contact with him. He said her name meaningfully. “This is good news. It’s gonna be ok. I promise.” She smiled after a moment, then nodded in agreement. “What'ya say we celebrate. I’ll run out and get some of that orangesicle ice cream junk you like. I’ll even let you decide what to watch on TV.”

She smiled again at the sweet gesture, but shook her head meekly

“I’m still a little tired, Javi. I’m sorry.” He assured her there was no need to apologize and that he understood, of course she needed to rest. Listening to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, he collapsed on the living room couch, sighing heavily. His brain hurt from concentrating on not saying anything he shouldn’t with her. He wasn’t too terribly sad about the fact that she was ready to head to bed.

Bed.

He sat upright quickly and then scurried into the bedroom just as he heard the tap turning off in the bathroom across the hall. He rummaged around in the closet quickly, grabbing a spare pillow he’d seen there earlier when he’d unpacked his things, as well as an extra bed sheet. He rushed out the bedroom door just as the door to the bathroom opened…

...Javi had never been so grateful for a pillow. He felt himself harden in his jeans as she froze, clutching her clothes to her chest. She had a towel wrapped around her, but it left nothing to the imagination. He felt like a deer caught in the beam of a headlight, and he had to remind himself to breathe. He screamed at himself to stop staring, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her flushed, pink skin, her silky smooth legs, the way her wet hair framed her face and danced over her bare shoulders, shedding drops of water onto her skin. He followed the route of one particular drop as it left her hair, fell to her clavicle, slid down her chest, over the curve of her breast and disappeared beneath the towel. He gulped, willing himself not to lick his lips.

“Sorry…” He was slightly horrified by the high pitched croak that was his voice as he forced the word from his throat. He cleared his throat and finally managed to tear his eyes away from her, staring down at the pillow and sheet in his hands, stepping out of her way. “Sorry,” he said again. “I just, uh...wanted to get a pillow so I didn’t have to bother you…” He watched her carefully from beneath his eyelashes; saw understanding, then relief, then….disappointment?...flash across her face in an instant. 

“Oh…”she said softly. “Well…” He glanced up at her again as she carefully moved towards the bedroom...he moved further from her naked body down the hall. “I...I feel badly that you’re sleeping on the couch…That….that won’t be very comfortable…” He nearly lost his mind when he caught her biting her lip, knowing that she was thinking, weighing how comfortable she would be with offering to let him sleep in the bed with her. He grimaced to himself. As far as she knew, that was “their” bed, and it should be the most natural thing in the world for a husband and wife to both climb into bed together and share the space for sleep. 

And he certainly wouldn’t have minded climbing into bed with her, not in this moment, not after seeing her like this. 

But they absolutely wouldn’t be sleeping.

“No, it’s ok.” He saved her the trouble of having to make a decision. “The couch is fine.” She twisted her face, not believing him one bit. “Really. You need to rest. It’s ok.” He turned and started towards the living room reminding her to call for him or wake him up if she needed anything. He heard her soft voice call his name behind him and he looked back at her.

“Thank you.”

He smiled, feeling her words go straight to that secret, soft spot in his heart that only she could seem to get to. He nodded and murmured good night before she closed the bedroom door between them.

Javi tossed his bedding onto the couch and plopped down after it, still feeling his pants stretching uncomfortably across his groin, the memory of her standing wet and nearly naked in front of him seared into his brain. It was all he could do to not take himself in his hand right then and pump himself to completion at the memory of that drop of water on her skin, the feel of their bodies grinding together in that club, how her hand had gripped and tugged in his hair.

_ “ _ Jesus fucking Christ _!”  _ he muttered to himself.  _ You gotta at least wait until she’s asleep, Peña!  _ He did wonder what would happen at the thought of her catching him thinking about her, groaning her name softly as he came in his own hand…

_ Stop being a pervert, you asshole!  _ He chided himself stretching out on the couch and flipping on the TV, searching for something desperately boring to distract himself with.

How the hell was he ever going to be able to do this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: I may very well end up changing the name of this story. I don't know to what, yet, but...it'll probably happen! =-0)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to the office in an attempt to jog your memories ends up revealing more about Javier Peña then you expected. Plus, a trip to the farmer's market knocks some things loose and a thunderstorm brings you and Javi closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooookay....so many things here. First, I'm sorry I haven't written anything on this in a while. Next: all the feelings. Soft, soft, Javi...awkward, awkward Javi. Couple more things:
> 
> 1\. Pretty sure I'm playing it fast and loose with the publication of Rumi's book of poetry  
> 2\. Also, yeah, yeah, I know...Javi reads poetry ?!?!? He does in my world!  
> 3\. I really hope Javi doesn't come off as a creeper...I'm going more for "pining" but I suppose it could be construed as creepy...=-0(  
> 4\. I can't remember if there is ever any mention of Javi's mom or what happened to her or when in the series...so if there is something mentioned, then this probably breaks canon...whoops!  
> 5\. This has not been proofread by anyone other than me...if you find any huge, glaring errors, let me know. Also, I'm looking for a beta reader so if anyone is interested, let me know. I can return the favor if you need!
> 
> As always, comments and feedback greatly appreciated.
> 
> Be well!  
> Thank you all so much for being so kind. I can't tell you how much your feedback and comments means to me.

***

It had been a week since you’d come home from the hospital.

During that week, there had been so little success in regaining your memories save for those brief hopeful moments with Javi the previous weekend. Javi had done as much work from home as he could this past week; when he did have to go in to the office, he usually returned with stacks or boxes of paperwork, spreading out on the coffee table or in the kitchen like now, grumping that he didn’t want to leave you on your own for too long if he could help it. The time in the alone stretched on endlessly and you always felt a jolt of happiness when you heard the key in the lock and your husband strode in on a cloud of cigarette smoke, faded aftershave and cologne with (more often than not) a frustrated scowl decorating his handsome face. You always took note of how that scowl slipped from his face when he greeted you, though, and that moment always made you smile.

The previous day you’d joined Javi at work for a short while. You had discussed at dinner the night before that maybe more familiar surroundings would jar something loose...after all, Javi had said, the two of you usually spent more time at the office than you ever really did in your apartment. You eagerly agreed. If nothing else you were excited for a change of scenery. 

It had been more awkward than anything, really and you were disappointed that nothing short-term had seemed to come back to you. Feistl and Van Ness had both greeted you warmly, inquiring as to whether you’d gotten the flowers they’d sent. Both younger men had kindly remarked that you looked like you were doing well and then proceeded to lapse into an uncomfortable silence, glancing from one another and then Javi before quickly scurrying off to complete some menial task. Dixon had found you as well, and had seemed a bit on edge when she had made small talk with you. You simply chalked it up to stress, but you had seen her pull Javi a short distance away and speak furtively to him, clearly irritated with something he had said or done. Javi’s brows had lowered over his dark eyes when the older woman had moved away and he had ushered you into his office, telling you he needed to pop into a quick meeting...shouldn’t take more than fifteen, twenty minutes and did you want to wait here or should he get a car to take you home? 

You’d been happy to settle yourself onto the worn leather couch, but as the time ticked by you grew antsy and started pacing around your husband’s office, tracing the pens on the desk, sitting in his chair and twirling in it absentmindedly, aimlessly gazing at the maps and photographs on the walls and bulletin boards. As you wandered, the corner of your jacket caught on something on the edge of the desk, pulling it off and sending a stack of papers fluttering to the floor. You cursed, then bend to re-stack the papers, hoping they had not been in any kind of order. You saw a thin, navy blue book also on the floor and reached to pick it up.

_ Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing _

You were struck for a moment: what was Javi doing with a book of love poems at work? You sat down in his desk chair again. Flipping open the small book you noticed a name written neatly in a woman’s handwriting on the inside cover:  Sofia Flores

A small piece of paper, worn with time was tucked between the cover and the title page. You carefully open it and read a small message in the same writing as the name: _**Sofia Flores**_

_**"Even though this marriage didn’t work out, my sweet Javi, remember: I will always love you. Xoxo"** _

Your stomach clenched. “This marriage” hadn’t worked out? You felt like your mouth was suddenly sandpaper and you started to close the book and place it back on the desk when another loose paper fluttered out from the middle pages...one of many pieces of paper stuck there you realized as you flipped to the middle of the book of poetry, finding two with corners dogeared. Two poems on opposite pages bracketed a small collection of what appeared to be newspaper clippings. The first poem read:

**“Lovers find secret places  
inside this violent world  
where they make transactions  
with beauty.”**

The other:

**“I want to see you.  
Know your voice. Recognize you when you  
first come ’round the corner. Sense your scent when I come  
into a room you’ve just left. Know the lift of your heel,  
the glide of your foot. Become familiar with the way  
you purse your lips  
then let them part,  
just the slightest bit,  
when I lean in to your space  
and kiss you. I want to know the joy  
of how you whisper  
“more”**

Your breath caught at the simplicity and beauty of the poems, and it made your heart ache that your husband even possessed a book of poetry, much less one filled with such lovely words. You started to look through the clippings flattened between these two poems and were surprised when you noticed they all seemed to be about you. 

There were five total: one from what appeared to be an interoffice newsletter highlighting your work as a successful agent in a mostly male dominated field. The short article included a photograph of you taken several years ago when you had graduated from Quantico. The other four were in Spanish and had clearly come from local Bogota papers. Each had grainy black and white photos of you (and two with Javi along with some other DEA agents) at different locations around the city taken during the last two years as you had worked to help unravel the mess that was Columbian drug trafficking. In one, you and Javi and  Feistl stood together surveying a map spread on the hood of a Jeep, most likely either pre- or post- op. In another, you were escorting a minor drug crony from a building, his hands behind his back, your hand firmly on his shoulder and your torso covered in a sturdy tac vest. The others were similar and at the bottom of the small pile of clippings, you found a polaroid photo.

It was another picture of you, but in this one you were sitting amongst a small group of co-workers. Despite the others in the picture, you were framed at the center, clearly the focus of the photographer. You remembered this night from over a year ago: It was Van Ness’’s birthday and you and several other colleagues had pitched in to buy him a Polaroid camera like the one that would have taken this picture. It had been a good night out, a fun dinner with margaritas and beer flowing. As everyone got more silly and giggly and loose, the camera had been passed around and each person had taken a turn snapping a photo. You vaguely remembered glancing across the table just as the snap from this photo being taken had reached your ears and noticed Peña lowering the camera from his face, removing the picture from the roller as it slid from the device, growling something to the person next to him as he passed the camera. You hadn’t thought anything of it, thinking your partner had just taken a wide shot of you and your colleagues across the table. All of the photos had been collected at the end of the evening and presented to Van Ness, who had spread them all out on the table for everyone to giggle and admire one another’s silly faces and poses. 

The realization struck you that your husband must have kept the photo he had taken that night, a photo with you at it’s center. It was worn, smudged along the edges and showing creases and a small tear in one corner. Clearly it was handled regularly.

“Hey.” The gruff rasp of your husband’s voice startled you and you looked up at him guilty. “You ready to get outta here…?” He stopped short when he saw the book in your hand, the clippings on the desk, the photograph in your other hand.

“I’m sorry!” Your first instinct was to apologize; clearly this wasn’t something he wanted people to see. “I didn’t…” You quickly moved from being apologetic to feeling tears well up in your eyes as you remembered: “even though this marriage didn’t work out”...from “Sofia”. You looked up at him. “Javi?” You could only choke out his name by way of question.

Javi’s face transformed to worry when he heard your voice say his name. He moved quickly to crouch next to you in his desk chair.

“Hey, hey...it’s ok. What is it? Whatsa matter?” He put a callused hand along your cheek, searching your eyes for an explanation. You could only look back down at the book in your hands.

“Is our marriage over?” You asked him, tears starting to fall. His brows came together in confusion and he spoke softly.

“What? What do you...what do you mean, sweetheart?” You flipped back to the front cover of the book, smoothing out the note from “Sofia”. 

“Who’s Sofia Flores?” You held your breath, waiting for him to look guilty, ashamed, abashed at being found out, but you saw realization flutter across his eyes and his face relaxed; he released a puff of air...almost a small laugh, and he stood, leaning carefully on the desk next to you, wiping a hand across his face.

“No. No, sweetheart...it’s not what you think.” He looked at you for a moment, studying you carefully. “Do you remember...do you remember me telling you about Lorraine?” You nod and the next instant, you feel relief come over you. Lorraine: his former fiancé back in Texas. He had told you about her once, one late night at the office when you had both sipped a little too much whiskey and started swapping stories about miserable past relationships. Lorraine: who had always put him down, made him feel like he was never good enough, a piece of shit, who demeaned the things he had found interesting. You had never met the woman, but you remember feeling that night like you had never hated anyone as much as you hated her for treating Javi so poorly. You also remember thinking to yourself that night how incredibly wrong someone could be about another human being. But then again, you hadn’t been engaged to Javier Peña….yet. Javi sees it click in your face and continues.

“Sofia Flores was my mom. She gave me this,” he gently takes the book from you, “right after I left Lorraine...right before I came here. She taught herself English with this.” He held the book up, pride sparking behind his eyes at the memory of his mother. You nodded, remembering him telling you how she had passed during his first few months in Columbia; it had been sudden and he hadn’t even known she was sick until it was too late. He hadn’t been able to get back in time to say goodbye…You noticed him swallow hard as he saw the articles about you spread on the desk. 

“What about…”you gesture to the clippings, the photo in your hand. “What about all of these? Why do you have all this stuff about me stuck in here? Why don’t you keep these at home?” He looked uncomfortable for a moment, like he was caught at something somehow.

“I, uh….I just...I had ‘em tucked away from...before we were…” He stopped himself, seeming to think carefully about what to say next. Then he looked from the articles to you and then away again, almost shy. “I guess...I had a little crush on you when we were partners and...I just never took ‘em out of there after...things changed.” He took the photo from you, looking at it for a moment, then back at you; for a moment he looked like a little boy waiting to be yelled at for breaking a window with his baseball. You smiled up at him and his face relaxed, returning the smile with a small one of his own. He cleared his throat and straightened from the desk, returning the articles and picture back to their spot in the middle of the book and quickly depositing the book into a desk drawer. He held his hand out to you and pulled you to your feet. “Hungry?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said, taking a step closer to him and keeping hold of his hand for a moment when he let go. He looked surprised by your closeness, then smiled down at you again, carefully. You stood on your tiptoes and carefully kissed him; a chaste, quick kiss lasting only a moment or two, but you felt a current dance between your connected lips, like sparks from an incorrectly attached jumper cable. His eyes stayed closed for several seconds after you broke the kiss and settled back onto your feet; you smiled at how in awe of the taste of you he seemed to be. Your smile turned into a grin when he opened his eyes and met your gaze, smiling softly back at you. “I’m starving, actually.” 

You slid your arm through your husband’s as the two of you left the office and headed for a late lunch.

****

_ You’re a fuckin’ moron, Peña!  _ Javier had thought to himself instantly when he had walked back into his office and seen her sitting at his desk with the Rumi book in her hand. He’d panicked when he’d heard her say his name and seen the tears in her eyes. He’d quickly realized the confusion and had breathed easy knowing she hadn’t been angry with him.

Once more he felt like a creep when he realized she had found the articles and picture he had kept tucked away inside it. He saw her everyday in clearer situations: her beautiful face on the phone , tongue between her lips, determining if a tip is legitimate; listening through headphones as she giggled trying to seduce an informant, watching beads of sweat drip down her neck and the sound of her heavy pants after she finishes running down a narco in the dusty streets. 

He’s not proud to admit that he has thrown his imagination to any one of these memories on the occasion when he would not seek out a woman to distract him and he had instead unbuttoned his jeans and pumped himself to the thought of his partner. That seemed to have been happening more and more in recent months, but he hadn’t ever used those photos for THAT.

He kept these on the even more frequent occasion when he would close his office door, stare at her face and reread one of those poems for the millionth time, feeling a balloon fill inside his chest with yearning for her...aching to hold her close to him and whisper those lines in her ear; truths about how he felt about her. 

Now, he refused to acknowledge how much it made his heart sing as they walked through the outdoor market a few minute’s walk from their apartment. They had returned home and had lunch, no new memories having made an appearance with exposure to their place of work. She had been frustrated by and he had suggested they go for a walk, get out of the apartment some more...it was a beautiful day after all.

Now, they wandered past the tables and stalls of brightly colored pineapples, papayas, bananas, peppers and avocados, stopping occasionally to buy something for dinner or pausing for her to admire a woven bag. She spoke Spanish to the merchants easily, a good sign, he thought, that her long term memories were strong. 

He discreetly admired his partner’s profile as she stopped to look at a bright display of flowers, enquiring about price from the kind, toothless, stooped older woman manning the stall. She paid the lovely worker and put her nose to the large white bouquet of petals and Javi felt his heart nearly stop. 

She was so beautiful.

...It took him a moment to realize something was wrong, but when he noticed her stiffen and her brow furrow, he was next to her in an instant, his hand on her elbow, quietly saying her name. She looked at him...but didn’t see him for a few moments, her gaze was elsewhere, seeing something else. He knew she was remembering something.

“I remember…”she started, blinking her eyes and looking back down at the flowers in her hands. “Plumeria…” she said quietly. “I remember we were next to...a swimming pool? You and I? It was nighttime.” 

Javi knew exactly what she had remembered. He gulped, saying nothing, not wanting to distract her from remembering. She continued following the thread of memory the scent of the flowers had unlocked.

“We were…” Her face flushed suddenly and she glanced up at him, then away again almost immediately. “...together. You...had me up against…” she gulped, the blush in her face turning a deeper scarlet. Javi remembered, too.

They’d made an early exit from Ortiz’s dinner party; she had feigned a headache. They had believed Ortiz’s lab was beneath his pool, the entrance through the pool house in the back of his home. While everyone else had been occupied with the forth course and an unknown number of drinks, the two of them had slipped back around the premises, creeping along the sparkling pool, trying to find some clue to get them into the lab, something they could use to get a warrant. 

Javi had heard the noise from the guards making their rounds first, and he had yanked his partner by the elbow, pressing her back up against one of the plumeria trees, shoving one knee between her legs, gripping her ass with one hand and holding her head carefully with the other as he shoved his mouth against hers. She had fallen into the ruse seamlessly, recognizing instantly what he was doing. Her hands gripped fistfuls of his hair, one leg coming up to wrap around his waist, drawing her skirt up and giving his hips more access to the space between her legs. 

Even though it was only pretend, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from growing hard...being so close to her sex he had found himself grinding himself into her without thinking, eliciting a small moan from her mouth. He had torn his lips away and begun devouring her neck, making her gasp into the thick, flower scented air and signaling their location to the guards. He had snaked his hand up the front of her dress and pulled down, releasing her breast to the cool night air. She had pulled his head down and thrust her groin along the hard outline of his cock and he had gladly taken the pert nipple into his mouth, relishing in the sensation the soft pebble made between the gentle ministrations of his teeth. 

“ _ Perdón por interrumpir _ _ , Señor Sanchez,”  _ The two of them had sprung apart, reacting to Javier’s pseudonym, playing up the caught couple. Despite the act, though, Javi had looked at her as she’d straightened her dress, running a hair through her hair and he couldn’t help admire her swollen lips from his kisses and the flush on her cheeks. He had seen something in your eyes, reflecting what he felt himself. 

That hadn’t been  _ all _ fake.

“I...I don’t remember anything other than...us...against the tree.” Her voice snapped him back out of the memory; she was staring at the flowers in her hand sadly, grasping for more of the memory. 

He didn’t particularly want her to remember what had happened next.

That night they had been found out. They had been followed back to their “home” and both beaten, separated for a time in different rooms. He had heard her yelling and had heard over and over the sound of crashes and fists and palms meeting flesh amidst the sounds of the same happening to him. He had shouted, too, wanting her to know he was still there, he was still with her, they were still in it together. Later, after the sicarios had given you both a rest, they had been reunited when they were dragged into “their” bedroom and secured to their respective places, whispering to one another, made to wait through the dark hours of the early morning...until Ortiz’s men had returned when the sun had come up. 

The rest, he didn’t want to think about.

“Well…” His voice was gruff from the thought of how close he had come to losing her that day. “That’s something. That was...recent...just a few weeks ago.” She looked at him curiously, clearly able to see that he was reacting differently to the memory of them kissing passionately beneath a plumeria tree. She said his name, a question filling the sound. He looked at her and forced a small smile. “That’s good.” He said quietly, reaching for her hand. “C’mon. Let’s go home.” 

+

+

+

+

Javier laid awake in the darkness of the living room, trying not to think about that night again for the millionth time. The blanket was scratchy on his bare chest; he kicked it off of him and lay there, listening to the sound of the pounding rain outside, the occasional flash of lightning illuminating the apartment, thunder crashing and rumbling loudly. He hated that he would always have that memory of her, calling out, yelling in terror and panic. 

He sat up….had he dozed off? He thought he had heard her screaming his name again, just like she had from the other room that fateful night.

Then he heard it again.

_ “JAVI!!” _

He was down the hall and next to her on the bed faster than he could take a breath. She was curled in a ball, the covers soaked from sweat and kicked off of her, shaking furiously. In the light from a flash of lightning, he saw that her eyes were closed tightly, her face contorted into a terrified mask. She was having a nightmare... 

...and was calling out for him.

He carefully placed his hands on her shoulders, gently nudging her, not wanting to frighten her more upon waking, but wanting desperately to rescue her from the terror of her dream. She screamed as she bolted upright, nearly knocking her head into his. He gripped her shoulders firmly as her arms flailed out around her, fighting against him.

“Heyheyhey...easy, it’s me….its just me. It’s Javi.” She recognized him after a moment, and he continued to murmur that he was there, that she was ok, that he had her, that it had just been a bad dream; she flung herself into his arms. He held her against him, soothing her, whispering to her like she was a child, feeling her body shake. He felt warm, wet drops on his chest and knew she was crying. He gripped his arms around her more tightly, trying with all of his might to will her peace, a feeling of being safe. 

They stayed that way for a long time, him stroking her hair, murmuring into her ear, rocking her gently against him. Finally, he felt her take a shaky breath and she whispered against his chest:

“It felt so real. I was tied to a bed and...there was a man...he was trying to…” her voice choked into a sob once more and he felt the tears start to wet his chest again.

“Shhhhh….shhhhhh. It’s ok.” His voice was hoarse from sleep, cigarettes, fear...memories. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” He buries his face in her hair and breathes her name. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ve got you.”

More time passes. She breathing settles and her tears dry, but he continues to hold her. He feels the tension in her body release itself, little by little and she takes a deep, shaky breath before pulling back to look at him. The room is still dark and the rain still pours down outside, but the thunder has passed, is getting softer. 

“It was a nightmare.” She whispers, almost to herself.

He can’t bring himself to correct her; that it was a memory.  _ Not tonight, _ he thinks.

She’s staring into his chest, appearing to think about something carefully. He moves to unwrap himself from her, to settle her back into bed, but she grips his forearms firmly, stopping him from pulling away.

“Stay.” She breathes and he almost doesn’t hear it. He thinks for a moment, telling himself he shouldn’t. It’s not a good idea. But then she lifts her eyes to meet his and in the near darkness he sees them sparkle and she whispers: “Please. Stay with me.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just carefully bores her backwards until she’s lying on her back, her head on her pillow. He hovers above her, gazing down at her like a lover...like a husband might do before kissing his wife and bringing her to ecstasy…

...He shifts himself to lie next to her, behind her and he pulls her back against his chest, feeling her legs move to tangle with his. He reaches down to straighten the sheets and pulls them over top of both of them, then wraps his arms around her. He listens to her breathing get heavier and slow and he’s sure she must be asleep. Just as he thinks about closing his own eyes, she turns and rolls to face him, wrapping her own arms around him, too and burying her face in his neck. He’s sure she can feel his pulse pounding frantically, but she simply sighs softly, her breath skimming across his skin. Her breathing slows and deepens once again. She’s asleep.

Javi sighs, remembering the taste of her lips during that sweet, innocent kiss in his office earlier that day. Closing his own eyes, he buries his face in her hair, drifting off to sleep with the weight of her in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, absolutely no idea how amnesia works. Just thinking about how my own memories are often so connect to things like smells and certain sounds so....yeah.


End file.
